Hungary to vote on EU migrant quotas

In just over two weeks on October 2, Hungary will hold its referendum on mandatory EU quotas for relocating migrants.

Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban and his right-wing government oppose plans to relocate a total of 160,000 refugees across the EU. In 2015 more than one million refugees arrived in the EU and Hungary became a transit state on the Western Balkan route to Germany and other EU destinations. The country sealed its border with Serbia and Croatia and criminalised illegal entry in an effort to curb the influx. These measures were popular across Hungary but have been criticised by human rights groups.

The EU’s proposed quota was meant to ease the pressure of migrants on Greece and Italy as both countries have been the main entry points for migrants and refugees into the bloc. According to EU data, 2,280 people until mid-June had been relocated from both countries around the EU, none of them to Hungary.

Mr Orban has previously described the quotas as “illegal and unreasonable”, saying that they “could redraw Europe’s cultural and religious identity.”

Tim Hatton has written for the IZA World of Labor about setting policy on asylum in the EU and says “more attention needs to be given to creating a more even distribution of asylum claims across countries in order to reach the socially optimum number.” He suggests that a realistic option would be to set the central policy to obtain the optimal number for all countries together and then to reallocate asylum-seekers to obtain the “right” number for each country.

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